Up in Flames, Leeway Farm’s ‘Castle’ Helps Firefighters Learn

FAYETTEVILLE — The big house with multiple turrets and spires sitting on a long driveway along East Main Street was unusual when it was built in 1898.

Over the years it became somewhat of a landmark, a curiosity and even a fantasy castle to some people. Some thought it was haunted, although that didn’t seem to affect the people that lived there during the century-plus that passed following its original owner’s tragic death in 1911.

After its last owner died a few years ago, it set empty until the McNew family bought it at auction last fall.

Brian McNew and his family firm paid over $350,000 for the aging, deteriorating home built in a style that has often been described as a cross between late Gothic and the French Renaissance.

It was designed by Captain John Buckman, an unusual man with unusual ideas, even back at the turn of the 20th century.

By the time McNew bought it, it was in pretty bad shape structurally.

The cost of restoring it would have been prohibitive, he and the family decided.

Keeping Wrecking Ball at Bay, Serving Community

So they came up with an unusual way to keep it from the wrecker’s ball and provide a service to the community’s volunteer firefighters.

They salvaged what they could of the building’s unusual features in hopes of incorporating some of the best parts of the old house in a future project.

Question of the Day: To Restore or Burn?

Many area residents who grew up in the Fayetteville area expressed dismay on social media that more of an effort was not made to save the house.

Eric McQueen once delivered newspapers to the residents of the house in the 1980s.

He said that as a child he would sometimes take naps in the Mentzer cemetery on the west side of the drive leading down to the house.

Sometimes he would go fishing in creek behind the house.

“It was a beautiful house,” he said. “I wish (the McNews) would have contacted Property Brothers or one of the home improvement shows to save it.”

Others said while it made them sad that the house that had been a part of the town’s landscape all their lives was gone they knew the cost of preserving it would have been prohibitive.

McNew said the house had too many problems to be salvageable, including a bad case of black mold.

His family has a long and close connection to Fayetteville. He said he also grew up in the Fayetteville neighborhood near the house. Like others in the area, it was a familiar part of his childhood, he said.

“It’s not about the money (it would take to restore it),” he said. “It just wouldn’t be the same house in the end.”

But, he said he felt if the old house provided quality training to local firefighters it would serve a greater good.

“If this training saves one life down the road, it has served its purpose,” he said.